Thank you all for entering the prize draw for The Whisky Show tickets! I was shocked with the number of entries received. More importantly, I only had two numpties who couldn’t follow the instructions, so…

Just received the following stuff on the Diageo Special Releases for this year, so thought I’d better share. I’m going to a tasting of these tomorrow night, so will post my own impressions later in the…

Right, a quick disclaimer first: I’m stuck at home with a rotten cold (that won’t go away, curse it) and a slightly light head after our triumph at last night’s International Spirits Challenge awards bash…

Continuing our trilogy of blog posts on noteworthy whisky press releases, let’s have a bit about the new Gold Bowmore. In contrast to Whyte & Mackay’s media-savvy pi$$-taking audaciousness, as discussed in my previous post and here,…

Whisky press releases. There are several super-efficient whisky blogs and sites on t’interweb that post them up long before I’ve even read them. However, it has to be said that the vast majority of these…

After the positive response I got from my last blog post on the positive whisky stuff happening at the moment – and because I’m a person with a generally sunny disposition (once the sun’s over the yard-arm at…

In the interests of full disclosure, and to give any conspiracy theorists out there more grist for their mills, I will begin this blog by revealing that I and several other lucky whisky-lovers will be going to watch…

Recent Comments

I think that you have totally missed the point. Many of us are against NAS because increasing lack of information decreases our appreciation for a whisky. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a young 5/6/7/8 year old whisky and as many Distilleries have shown, there is much to enjoy and learn from young spirit, if matured in quality casks. The whole problem is that the Whisky industry doesn't trust us, the consumer to understand this! They patronize us instead by purposely withholding the age of the whiskies used and give the product some fancy name in the hope that we won't notice.
The bottom line is that they are afraid that stating that the youngest whisky in this bottling is 5 years old might negatively affect sales. To this I have two responses. 1. With the right marketing with words like fresh, clean, youthful, vibrant, it can be made to appeal. 2. The age statement does not have to be blazened across the front but can appear at the back somewhere. You can even be very ckever and state age of distilling and year of bottling and leave it up to those who want to know to work it out.
Withholding information like the age of the youngest whisky used or indeed the types of casks used is never a good thing and leads to a feeling by many consumers of dishonesty.Posted on: 19 July 2015

Speaking of "bond of trust", I noticed, after a particularly disappointing glass of Oban (a Diageo whisky), that the label now says simply "Oban 14". Nowhere does it specifically say "14 years old", or indicate the distillation/bottling dates.
As more and more NAS whisky appears, at higher and higher prices, I am convinced that often times a dram of 30 year old is going in to vats of 5 year old whisky and coming out as "Old Captain MacHaggis's ancient recipe very special blend traditional Scots Wa Hae highland and island rare old limited edition." For only $200 a bottle.Posted on: 26 June 2015